Election 2010?

[Fishbone Jones]

Mop & Pail imbeciles.

R62,

You wasted $30/ month. You should have bought beer.

 

[a_majoor]

Laughter is also good for you (although if you are laughing at the completely jaw dropping level of stupidity exhibited by the article in the previous post, maybe you should get out more! Incidently, John Doyle seems to have missed things like the faux Greek Temple props used by a certain candidate during the election, or the fact that the POTUS is totally enthralled by the teleprompter, which explains the weird tennis match thing during speeches as he swivels from teleprompter"a" to teleprompter "b". Maybe John Doyle needs to get out more as well....)

 

[ModlrMike]

Mop & Pail imbeciles.

R62,

You wasted $30/ month. You should have bought beer.

Better yet, when you're done with beer you get money back.

 

[HavokFour]

Well while the topic is on stupid articles...

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail is interesting for its speculation on how the 'issues' are being framed and when we might expect he next election:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pms-top-adviser-leaving-after-months-of-tory-turmoil/article1694725/

PM’s top adviser leaving after months of Tory turmoil
Harper looking to make changes after Tory support erodes during politically troubled summer

John Ibbitson

Ottawa — From Friday's Globe and Mail

Guy Giorno, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most senior adviser, is stepping down, as the Conservatives seek to recalibrate after a politically troubled summer.

Mr. Giorno, who has been Mr. Harper’s chief of staff since July, 2008, will leave his post by the end of the year, sources say. He recently became a father again and reportedly wishes to spend more time with his wife, son and newborn daughter.

Mr. Giorno is credited with bringing increased organizational discipline to the Prime Minister’s Office. But he has also been the focus of much criticism, some of it reportedly from within the government’s own ranks, as the Conservatives squandered last autumn’s 10-point lead in the polls through one political misstep after another.

Recent surveys by Decima-Harris, Ipsos Reid and EKOS have the Conservatives and Liberals essentially tied. The controversy over proroguing Parliament, the fight over the Afghan detainee documents, the billion-dollar summits, the flap over killing the mandatory census, the efforts to kill the gun registry, the fury of the veterans ombudsman and other controversies have conspired to erode support for the Conservatives.

Mr. Harper has decided that the next chief of staff will come from outside the ranks of the Prime Minister’s Office, which was the case for Mr. Giorno, a lawyer who had served as principal adviser when Mike Harris was Ontario premier.

In part because of that lineage, Mr. Giorno was seen by some as a hyper-partisan neoconservative whose obsessive need to score political hits on the opposition actually did the Conservative cause more harm than good.

The news for the Liberals is not entirely benign. Michael Ignatieff spent the summer on the road while Mr. Harper largely confined himself to the government’s Harrington Lake retreat until mid-August. Yet despite the media exposure and the Conservatives’ travails, the Liberal Leader wasn’t able to move the polls more than a few percentage points.

The Conservatives believe their successful handling of the recession will serve as the anchor of its eventual election message. Mr. Harper has also managed to finally assemble a coherent foreign policy: stand by the United States, but woo the Chinese and Indians, while asserting sovereignty in the North and focusing aid on Africa, Afghanistan and Haiti.

And the Conservative Leader is already test-driving what will doubtless become a relentless message: that Canada is really a two-party state, with the Conservatives on one side and a “coalition,” as he calls it, of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois on the other.

Never mind that the other parties don’t think of themselves as a coalition. It is Mr. Harper’s political good fortune that a coalition is governing Britain and will eventually be cobbled together in Australia. And a coalition is just what Mr. Ignatieff’s predecessor, Stéphane Dion, attempted. So the idea is in the air.

Mr. Ignatieff has already constructed his counter-narrative: The Conservatives are irrational and cruel. Irrational, because they spend billions on new prisons even though crime is going down, and they dismembered the mandatory long form of the census even though this will deprive governments at all levels of essential knowledge.

Cruel, because the Tories will have to cut program spending as the federal government moves toward a balanced budget.

These competing narratives will dominate the next election whenever it comes. It will almost certainly not be this fall, because no party stands to gain much at this stage, but may well be in the spring, because it will be very hard for the Liberals to support the next budget.

The Conservatives still have reason to feel better about that election than the Liberals for one simple reason: Year after year, since around 2006, only about one voter in four can be counted on to vote Liberal, except for brief periods when a few more join them. But one in three votes Conservative, except for brief periods when the Tories’ mistakes drive the numbers down.

This will be solace for Mr. Harper, whatever the poll numbers, as he prepares for autumn and a new chief of staff.

I agree that the “two party” narrative is a good one, albeit a bit dishonest, and I also agree that “competence” is the right 'brand' for the Tories to give themselves.

The Liberals will do well with the 'cruel and irrational' narrative unless or until someone asks them how they plan to tackle the deficit and what they plan to do about e.g. national defence.

I also hope that Harper campaigns, in 2011, on a platform that includes:

1. More seats in parliament for AB, BC and ON; and

2. An end or, at least, major cuts to election financing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is what I regard as a pretty fair analysis of the political situation in Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/heckling-howling-and-hijinks/article1711087/

Heckling, howling and hijinks
Parliamentary theatrics ‘like a hockey fight. Everyone tut-tuts, but everyone watches’

John Ibbitson

From Friday's Globe and Mail

There’s a new poll showing that Canadians want more civility in Parliament. If only they meant it.

Conservative MP Michael Chong has put forward proposals designed to limit the heckling, howling and hijinks of Question Period.

If adopted, Mr. Chong’s reforms would permit longer questions and answers, and give the Speaker more latitude to let backbench MPs question the government.

The Public Policy Forum, which held a conference on Thursday about returning decorum to Parliament, has released a poll showing that 65 per cent of Canadians believe “Question Period needs to be reformed and improved.”

Even John Baird, the newly appointed Conservative House Leader, who has been known at times to offer a convincing imitation of a pit bull having a bad day, is promising to make nice.

He has consulted with his counterparts in the other parties, Mr. Baird told reporters Thursday, and “I certainly signalled to them that we want to make Parliament work.”

So there is a wind behind the idea of toning down the political rhetoric. But it is a feeble wind, and it will soon blow itself out.

As John Duffy, a consultant and Liberal political strategist, has observed, the media universe is increasingly dominated by electronic forums that encourage ranting, making it hard to be heard unless you shout.

Within this brazen new world, a lot of people are making a lot of money reinforcing people’s prejudices. Whether it’s Michael Moore or Glenn Beck, Ezra Levant or Naomi Klein, there’s both fun and profit in overstating your case, demonizing your opponents and generally pandering to the paranoid.

No wonder Sun TV wants a licence to run a right-wing news channel in Canada, a la Fox News. Howling about socialism can be a goldmine.

There’s another reason to be skeptical that an outbreak of political civility will happen any time soon: You like things just the way they are.

Former Liberal MP Marlene Catterall hit the nail on the head at the Public Policy Forum gathering. Question Period, she observed, is like a hockey fight. Everyone tut-tuts, but everyone watches.

“Would we really watch the hockey game if there were no fights?” she asked afterward. Would we really watch Question Period if the questions were real questions and the answers real answers?

Besides, as pollster Allan Gregg has pointed out, in a political environment where barely half the population votes, mobilizing the base is more important than expanding the base. You don’t need to convince people to support you to win an election; you just need to make sure that those who already agree with you go out and vote.

In all these respects, political theatrics in Canada mirror those in the United States. But in another, far more important, respect, the two countries are complete opposites.

Americans disagree passionately on things that really matter: illegal immigration, taxes and deficits, wars past and present. The gulf between the Tea Party and Daily Kos is enormous.

But most Canadians agree about most things, and the two big parties reflect this. Really, how much do the Liberals and Conservatives differ on their approach to Afghanistan, to health care, to eliminating the deficit, to defending Canadian interests in the Arctic?

Sun News is reportedly in danger of not getting the kind of licence it needs to be profitable. But maybe there’s a bigger problem: Maybe there’s nothing happening here worth getting truly, deeply angry about.

In that sense, political theatre in Canada is just that: loud and colourful posturing designed to disguise consensus.

People like to watch the political equivalent of a hockey fight because otherwise it would be such a dull game.

I think Ibbitson is right: the ‘bad conduct’ in parliament, especially in question period is driven by the electronic media’s insatiable appetite for controversy – when no real controversy exists the media, especially the electronic media, will create, fabricate it because they must fill hours and hours and hours of ‘air time’ with something. They are selling audiences to advertisers – and let us be very clear about this, the media is not in the business of informing Canadians, that’s a self serving, self perpetuated lie, the media is in the business of selling audiences to advertisers, nothing more nor less, and it is a business and the journalists are only one part of the ‘marketing’ machine. Advertisers want eyes and ears on their ‘product’ and it is the sole duty of journalists and editors to deliver them. Journalists and the media have no other function; ditto the alternative media, the blogosphere and so on; informing us is the farthest things from the bloggers’ minds – they want to direct our thinking.

I also think Ibbitson has hit upon a key factor in Canadian politics – we are, by and large, a centrist, fiscally conservative, cautious but socially liberal, disengaged people who are lucky enough to live in a just well enough managed country. We have a narrow political spectrum: there is a small left wing, a tiny, nearly invisible right wing and a HUGE centre occupied by both the Conservative and Liberal parties who overlap one another - each having its own right, centre and left wings. Does anyone really think that Michael Ignatieff is anything more than a carbon copy of Stephen Harper? I don’t. Do you think Scott Brison would be even the tiniest bit different in Finance than Jim Flagherty? I don’t. How about Bob Rae? Would he be a different Foreign Minister than Lawrence Cannon? I don’t think so. And would Dominic LeBlanc make any difference at all in National Defence? Nope, he’s a carbon copy of Peter MacKay. So, why do we care? The answer is: we don’t. Politically, we don’t chose our governments we just, periodically, throw the rascals out.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I find it funny that a commentator seems to think that Canada has an underlying consensus and the United States does not.  The literature would suggest otherwise. 

Question Period will differ from what we see in the US not because of TV, but because of the parliamentary system.  There is always a bit of theatre because it is the Loyal Opposition's duty to poke at the government.  Question period pre-dates TV.  It isn't meant to be a briefing or committee meeting.

 

[Edward Campbell]

While question period was only rarely a substantive answer period, as late as the 1950s and '60s it was still a time when, after the ritual duelling between the PM (St Laurent/Diefenbaker/Pearson) and opposition leader (Drew/Pearson/Diefenbaker), members could poke away at substantial policy issues and could expect, at least, a high standard of rhetoric and some good humour. It is now dominated by attempts at TV worthy 10 second sound bites.

In most government departments, five days a week, select senior officials (and senior military officers) are required to drop everything and sit at a conference table at about 1030 hrs with a bunch of twenty-something political staffers who have the unenviable chore of guessing the questions - based on the morning papers and TV news shows - that might be put to their minister and crafting non-answers based, almost exclusively, on their TV potential. This may be repeated over lunch if when things change.

Admirals and generals are not immune to the beck and call of these young political staffers and heaven help anyone who suggests that something so unimportant as, say, ongoing combat operations might take priority over preparing the minister's daily QP briefing notes. 

QP is a uniquely parliamentary form; in some (indeed, I think most) parliaments it still resembles Canada in the 1950s and '60s - we, almost uniquely, moved away from civility, decorum and, periodically, answers and we did so, in the 1970s, '80s and beyond, in lock step with the rise of the electronic media.

 

[Kirkhill]

A cousin of mine used to work for Bass breweries in Britain.  Red Triangle trademark.  Been around since John signed the Magna Carta.  They were having trouble with declining market share in a concentrating market.  They decided to expand.  To China.  They bought a brewery that produced more beer than all the other breweries they owned around the world.  They still sold up and went out of business.  The problem?  That one massive brewery still owned only 1% of the Chinese market.  They were still a marginal player.

No replace China with the US.  Replace that brewery with Glenn Beck and the Daily Kos.  Replace Bass with your Bete Noire of Choice (Soros or Koch) and you have a similar dynamic. 

The difference is that now, for a relatively small fortune, hobbyists like Soros and Koch can indulge themselves and play king maker in a market place that matters.  They use/support/buy pulpits in the only church that the world pays attention to anymore - the US of A.  They can pull a crowd to fill a TV screen (or Monitor) because:


A the US has more bodies than us
B those bodies are concentrated in more cities of 1,000,000 than us
C the US is affluent enough so that both the affluent and the poor have time to spare from surviving to indulge in showing up for demonstrations

The extreme left and extreme right in the US are no more significant in terms of their relative market share in the US than they are in Canada.  They are both 1 percenters, like that Chinese brewery.

The difference is there are 10 times as many of them, it is 10 times easier to get a crowd to create those electronic images for distribution, and they can attract the money to buy them a suitable megaphone to amplify their voice.  Their market, their pulpit, matters.

Ours doesn't.

Their pulpits are worth money.  Ours aren't.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two items of interest, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/confidence-scenarios-make-king-byng-look-like-a-walk-in-the-park/article1734601/

VICE-REGAL CHANGEOVER
Confidence scenarios ‘make King-Byng look like a walk in the park’

JANE TABER

Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Thursday, September 30, 2010

Frank Graves has some advice for the incoming governor-general David Johnston: Be prepared.

The pollster’s counsel comes amid a very confused political landscape outlined in the latest EKOS survey. Released Thursday, it shows Canadians are warming to the possibility of a fall election – and they want a majority government.

Thirty-three per cent of those surveyed (up five points from this time last year) favour a fall election, compared to 67 per cent who want one “some time later.” And 48 per cent of EKOS respondents favour a majority government compared to 26 per cent who prefer a minority government.

Don’t get too excited, though. It’s unlikely this will happen any time soon.

For starters, there is no party leader who currently can deliver more than a minority government. And the latest numbers show Canadians aren’t sure what kind of majority government they want: 26 per cent want a majority Conservative government and 10 per cent want a Harper minority; 22 per cent support a Liberal majority compared to 16 per cent who want an Ignatieff minority; and 26 per cent support none of those options.

About that fall election? Support for it comes from mostly NDP and Green Party voters whose enthusiasm may be curbed by the latest EKOS numbers showing them woefully behind the Tories and Liberals.

However, the poll suggests the Prime Minister and Finance Minister are on the right track when they speak darkly of the “Ignatieff-Bloc-NDP coalition” and how it could harm the economy. The EKOS poll shows 41 per cent of Canadians support a coalition government of the Liberals and NDP compared to 39 per cent of those surveyed who support a Conservative government.

But there is a catch. About 5 per cent of voters, who come largely from Liberal ranks, would switch to the Tories because they don’t like the prospect of “NDP-Liberal bedfellows,” Mr. Graves says. So it wouldn’t be wise for Mr. Ignatieff to play this up.

Given this chaotic political scene – and the fact the government could fall at any time in a minority situation – Mr. Johnston, who is to be sworn in Friday morning, should start reviewing his protocols, powers and the Constitution.

“As nobody is in striking range of a majority and as the most obvious (Liberal/NDP) coalition barely eclipses the CPC forecast, the incoming governor-general may want to prepare for what might become a challenge unprecedented in its complexity and risk,” Mr. Graves advises.

If the Tory government was brought down immediately would the new governor-general send Canadians to the ballot box? What would happen if Stephen Harper wanted to prorogue again to avoid facing a confidence vote? There are so many scenarios and strange possibilities, Mr. Graves says, they “make King-Byng look like a walk in the park.”

The EKOS poll of 3,782 Canadians was conducted between Sept. 16 and Sept 28; it has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

And

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/policy-pinched-liberals-eye-home-care-plan/article1733342/

Policy-pinched Liberals eye home-care plan

LAWRENCE MARTIN

Globe and Mail Update
Published Thursday, Sep. 30, 2010

The future is electric cars, high-speed rail, green technologies, superior health care and democracies that are democratic.

The Conservative government is spending a combined $30-billion on new prisons, Cold War fighter jets and corporate tax breaks. It’s still foot-dragging on the green file.

The opportunity for the Liberals to cast themselves as the party of the future as opposed to the party of the past is gaping. But, thus far, they haven’t made that case. The old argument about holding off on policy intentions until an election campaign is preventing them from getting traction.

Michael Ignatieff has spent the past few months working on his fuzzy personal image. That needed to be done. Now it’s the fuzzy policy image that needs work. On that front, the Liberals – or so they claim – will soon get active.

A major initiative in the works, according to insiders, is on health care – specifically, home care. The new plan would see new forms of financial assistance for family caregivers, people who have to take time from work to tend to aging parents or family members stricken by mental or physical illnesses.

This would be done for thousands of families through increased benefits, a major one being an expansion of the employment insurance system. There’s a compassionate care benefit in the existing EI, but Liberals say it’s too small and overly restrictive.

The party also wants more investment in institutionalized home care – professional caregivers going to homes – and will push for that in the coming renegotiation of the federal-provincial health accord. But this is a more dubious prospect. Their emphasis will be where the federal government has the most power to act – a concrete plan for family caregivers.

“This isn’t about a nanny state,” said one of the Liberals working on the policy. “This is about people taking care of each other.”

Given the Conservatives’ emphasis on families, the Liberals are surprised they’ve done so little on home care. With the aging population, some public opinion analysts are of the view that home care is one of the most obvious and resonant big ideas for improving health care. It frees up hospital beds, humanizes the system and keeps families together.

Liberal health critic Ujjal Dosanjh, who wouldn’t comment on his party’s new plan, said the thinking when the Liberals negotiated the health accord with the provinces in 2004 was that “home care was the way to go because it would reduce the burden in the hospitals. … But the Conservatives have not pushed the provinces to come up with what’s needed to be done in the accord.” Mr. Dosanjh, who was health minister when the accord was signed, said it’s hard to get a fix on what the Harper government has done because it’s not forthcoming on the subject.

Liberal MP Keith Martin, a physician and an authority in the health-care field, is all in favour of an expanded home-care plan, but he hasn’t been consulted by the party hierarchy. One reason, perhaps, is that Dr. Martin favours an increased role for the private sector in health care. He says the Canada Health Act must be modernized to allow patients to pay for care in separate facilities funded solely by the private sector. “We cannot continue to wrap ourselves in the CHA, hold on to shibboleths and demonize those who are trying to modernize our obsolete health-care system.”

Indeed, a case can be made that our system is becoming both obsolete and unsustainable. A new home-care plan might not do much to address these larger issues, but it’s a step in a better direction.

First, a bit of math; Jane Taber is not quite right: there are party leaders who can deliver a majority – Stephen Harper and, in a pinch, Michael Ignatieff:

• To do it the Liberals need to build upon the 35± seats they are guaranteed in Québec and Atlantic Canada by winning 120+ in Ontario and the West. Since they are highly unlikely to get 20 or more seats in the West that means they must sweep Ontario, as Jean Chrétien did in the 1990s; and

• The math is a tiny bit easier for the Conservatives who must add to the 60± seats they are nearly guaranteed West of Ontario by getting 95 or so in Ontario, Québec and Atlantic Canada. It’s not easy but it can be done. The 5% of Liberals who might be enticed to vote Tory IF the coalition bogeyman can be played well might bring several seats with them.

But, it is policy that might serve the Conservatives best. Lawrence Martin is almost certainly correct in his analysis of what most Canadians want, most. But what he fails to mention is that they also want law and order and jet fighters and so on – in effect the great Canadian muddled middle wants everything. The Tory base wants less and less and less – except for prisons and fighters; they must be ignored while Team Harper actually addresses issues like home care in a conservative manner – tax breaks for families providing care for family members, for example, rather than just more unionized, publicly funded home care workers. There are conservative ways to buy votes – which is what most Canadians want – and, thereby, buy a majority government. The key to that majority is in South and South-West Ontario - policies that appeal to the 519 and 905 area codes will do the trick because those folks are the classic muddled middle they want some of everything, but they want it well administered in a moderate manner.

 

[a_majoor]

Something which might become an issue, given the current emphasis on deficits and spending (even though the issue should be local, I'm sure a bail out call will be coming soon and the government will be in a no-win situation, either heartlessly leaving the city on the hook, or bailing out developers at the expense of the taxpayer....)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/city-goes-after-assets-of-games-developer/article1736121/

City goes after assets of Games developer
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER— Special to Globe and Mail Update
Published Thursday, Sep. 30, 2010 6:50PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 01, 2010 12:55AM EDT

Vancouver is taking aggressive action to secure the corporate and personal assets worldwide of the Olympic village’s private developer after acknowledging that the developer did not pay the full amount of its first $200-million loan payment to the city.

Although he scrupulously avoided the word “default,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said on Thursday that Millennium Development Corp. paid only $192-million of the first payment due on Aug. 31 and that its failure to come up with the other $8-million through some means other than village condo sales – admittedly sluggish for many reasons – is a serious concern.

“We want to make sure we’re covered on the security side,” Mr. Robertson said, while continuing to insist that “we want to give [Millennium] every chance. They have made it this far under challenging circumstances.”

As well, the city, which took over financing the village construction in February of 2009 after Millennium’s original lender refused to continue making payments because of cost overruns, has told Millennium that it either has to pay out the $561-million it owes the city or prove that it has a solid plan for making the loan payments that were originally scheduled.

Councillor Geoff Meggs called the inability of developers Peter and Shahram Malek to use other assets they own to meet their loan payment was a “red flag” for the city.

Millennium is currently marketing a tower project in the West End and filed notice with the Superintendent of Real Estate on Tuesday that it had refinanced its ambitious Evelyn Drive project in West Van.

After a hard-hitting news conference at city hall on Thursday, city officials made it clear that not only did Millennium not make its loan payment, but that the municipal government has put its legal team to work to register charges against all Millennium properties pledged and to find any additional assets that might be secured.

Sources say it’s not clear the exact value is of Millennium’s holdings or of the Maleks personally. That means no one knows at this point whether there is enough security to cover any shortfalls at the village if sales of the residential units never generate enough money to cover the construction loan and the price of the city’s land.

In e-mail exchanges earlier this week, Shahram Malek reiterated that he and his brother are “committed to get through” the project and will do whatever it takes to protect the asset.

Land records show that the company owns almost 200 pieces of real estate, while Shahram Malek has 15 different properties listed under his name. The Malek family, which ran a construction business in Iran before coming to Canada in the 1980s, also has holdings in Europe and the Middle East.

However, many of its B.C. holdings are encumbered by large mortgages and, in some cases, more than one lender is involved.

The city held a “floating debenture” over many of the company’s assets, but that level of legal agreement relies partly on the honour system to ensure that a borrower doesn’t refinance or add a lender to existing assets.

Lands records show the city moved on Sept. 22 to start registering charges against at least two other Millennium properties downtown, the Alexandra on Bidwell, where a proposed tower has been generating backlash from West End residents, and L’Hermitage at Robson and Richards, where Millennium still owns several condos and some retail space. The city did not appear to have registered a charge against the Evelyn Drive properties as of Wednesday or against Shahram Malek’s property.

Besides giving Millennium a deadline to produce a new marketing plan and details on its collateral, city officials said they have been having serious discussion with the Maleks about retaining the value of the asset and, especially, dealing with deficiencies so that prospective buyers aren’t put off by complaints from existing residents about problems.

As well as giving the update on financial state of the market condos and loan at the village, the mayor also reiterated that the city is preparing to find operators for the rental buildings it owns in the village. He pointed out that the city already operates more than 800 units of social housing in the city and has done so successfully for 30 years.

 

[Kirkhill]

I just read this article about Nick Clegg and the impact of the Liberal Democrat coalition with the Conservatives on the fate of the Liberal Democrat party.

It might give Jack and Mike pause.....

The Liberal Democrats are now polling in the same zone as the Bloc Quebecois and the Greens over here.....flirting with single digits.

A coalition may mean a battle won but a war lost.

 

[a_majoor]

The recent vote on the long gun registry might have been a test drive of the Coalition; seeing who is reliable and who is not and if there is enough "common ground" (the common cause is the seize the keys to the treasury) for a coalition to be actually workable in a parliament.

My own best guess is "no"; since the prime motivation is simply greed the coalition partnership will rapidly unravel in a fight over the spoils. Since *we* are the spoils, this is an outcome I would accept...

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two issues that point towards an Ignatieff led Liberal/NDP coalition next year:

1. The Conservatives are losing support on the F-35 deal. Canadians, broadly, do not like spending money on national defence; they may wear red t-shirts on Fridays but they will not vote for the F-35. Canadians liked it when Chrétien cancelled the EH-101; they like it, now, when Ignatieff promises to cancel the F-35;

2. Omar Khadr – opinion appears split: the Conservative base hates him, pretty much unanimously, everyone else - 70% of Canadians - buy into the “innocent” child soldier narrative and want him home.

But a coalition is still problematical because of the BQ.

IF - and it's a really BIG and unlikely IF - the Liberals and Dippers can get a combination of 155 seats – say 110 Liberals and 45 NDP – then they are home and dry and a coalition it will be.

But if the coalition depends upon even tacit BQ support then Canadians will find it suspect. The current polling suggests that were an election held today we might see something like 120± Conservatives; 100± Liberals, 35± Dippers and 50± in the BQ caucus. Enough to easily defeat a Conservative government on a budget and enough to persuade the Governor General to give a Liberal/NDP coalition a chance to govern but not enough to do it without unwavering BQ support. The Conservatives woul then paint both the Liberals and NDP as being “in bed” with the separatists and that might be enough to give each a “kiss of death” in the next election – thereby guaranteeing a Conservative majority.

 

[ProudNewfoundlander]

Harper seems content to continue to alienate Eastern Canada. He could get as many as 30 seats combined in Quebec, The Maritimes, and Newfoundland & Labrador.

Mind you its pointless to bring the point up to any conservative as they will just make quips about Danny Williams and all the money Quebec gets, nothing constructive will be said.

For the time being he's got enough of a grip on Ontario to keep the Liberals out of power.

 

[Edward Campbell]

See Lawrence Martin, in his (sometimes) perceptive analytical mode, here on what might be the real reason we are might be staying in Afghanistan: to hamstring the Liberals, again.

IF, as appears increasingly likely, we are going to the polls six or seven weeks after the 2011 budget (i.e. March or April) then Harper may have taken most of the issues - except "who is the best PM?" off the table. And see this for an explanation of why Harper likes it that way:

Source: The Globe and Mail

In other recently reported polling Harper is well ahead of Layton (generally 2nd place) and Ignatieff (usually in 3rd place) in every single "leadership" and "competence" issue; Layton is the "best liked," but even there Harper beats Ignatieff.

 

[Kat Stevens]

The bottom row certainly tells the "tale of the tape".  We're boned.